Time is ticking on North Sea oil recovery

By Trevor Hawes thawes@mrt.com

Published 4:19 pm, Thursday, December 15, 2016

Photo: Matthew Lloyd/Bloomberg

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Bloomberg Best of the Year 2016: The West Phoenix oil platform, operated by Seadrill Norge AS, third left, stands with other unused platforms in the Port of Cromarty Firth in Cromarty, U.K., on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016. The pace of drilling in the North Sea, the center of U.K. oil production for the past 40 years, has sunk to a record as crashing energy prices force explorers to abandon costly projects. Photographer: Matthew Lloyd/Bloomberg

Bloomberg Best of the Year 2016: The West Phoenix oil platform, operated by Seadrill Norge AS, third left, stands with other unused platforms in the Port of Cromarty Firth in Cromarty, U.K., on Tuesday, Feb.

It’s getting very expensive to extract oil from the North Sea as the fields become depleted. It doesn’t bode well for the U.K. oil industry, but one motivated geologist from Scotland recently made his way to the Permian Basin to learn how to better recover the economic driver and give West Texans an update on the situation half a world away.

Jamie Stewart is a University of Edinburgh postdoctoral research assistant studying carbon capture and storage for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). He spoke Dec. 8 at the 22nd annual CO2 and ROZ Conference at the Horseshoe.

Stewart is pushing for the use of CO2 flooding to revive North Sea fields, but there’s a catch: “To give kind of a grim update on what’s happening in terms of CO2 EOR in the North Sea at the moment, there are currently no CO2 EOR projects. This is because there is no CO2. There are no natural accumulations of CO2. There is some CO2 produced in natural gas fields, but their concentrations are very small.”

Getting CO2 through anthropogenic means -- namely, carbon capture -- opens the possibility for CO2 EOR. But it’s more than about tapping more oil from existing fields. The longer the North Sea is active, the more time there is to search for residual oil zones (ROZs).

“CO2 EOR is the next step, and ROZs are a step beyond that,” Stewart told the Reporter-Telegram after his presentation. “I think a lot more of the focus has been on EOR, in general. In my view, it’s best with CO2, but other companies are exploring for different types of EOR options. If you can do anything to extend the lives of these fields, it’s going to be a good thing for the economy.”

The Permian Basin could play a crucial role helping get CO2 EOR going in the North Sea.

“There’s a lot of experience here with CO2 flooding,” he said. “Because we don’t have any real projects in the North Sea, we’re looking to places like this to get that experience. Even though it’s in an offshore setting, the reservoirs aren’t massively different. They’re still oil reservoirs, and there are a lot of learnings that can be taken from the Permian Basin.”

The education happens a lot faster in Texas than in the U.K.

“One thing would be that there is a lot of regulation in the U.K., and we worry about things a lot. We look at a lot of theory,” said Stewart, who received his PhD in 2015. “In this part of Texas, it’s more about getting on with it, testing it out and getting practical experience. I guess it’s because it’s more expensive in the North Sea, as well, so it’s trickier to run those kinds of trials.”

Stewart noted that what also impressed him is the amount of data sharing that happens between professionals in the Permian.

“You’d think there would be more confidentiality problems, but it seems to be a real community,” he said. “If people are having problems, there’s real discussion and people helping each other solve the problems.”

Stewart took part in the conference’s field trip and said it was beneficial because he was able to see all of the processing equipment and meet the guys on the ground operating it. “To come here and shake hands with the guys in the field and talk with them about their hands-on knowledge is great.”

To Stewart, time is ticking fast on finding a solution to recover more oil from the North Sea.

“I feel time is running out to keep the industry there, to keep the jobs and keep the production. A lot of the big companies are moving out where it’s cheaper to produce oil. If they don’t get help, they’re going to leave with half the oil left in the ground.”